Sasken to raise Rs 35 cr by divesting equity

BANGALORE: Sasken Communication Technologies Ltd. plans to raise Rs 35 crore

by divesting its equity in this quarter for funding business development

activities. This was confirmed by Sasken vice president-Finance, Neeta Revankar,

who said that the money was expected during this current quarter. "We will

use this to further our business and also invest it in our product development

initiatives," she told CIOL Bureau.

The percentage of equity to be divested is yet to be finalised that is

expected to be decided by the end of July and the money will be remitted shortly

thereafter. Citicorp Finance (India) Ltd. and Intel Pacific Inc., who have

participated in the earlier round are also expected to participate, apart from

all the existing shareholders in the equity, in the fund raising.

"We are expecting the current year to bring growth across all the

business divisions in Sasken. We have a good rapport with our clients. With the

recent restructuring of the company into four business units that will address

semiconductor companies, terminal equipment manufacturers, network equipment

vendors and service providers, the business is geared to be more market focussed,"

said, Revankar.

The company has already launched Aparate, a non-PC Internet access device.

Targeted at the enterprise segment, Sasken, is inviting enterprise application

developers to bundle their solutions along with Aparate. More products are on

the anvil from Sasken, confirmed the company’s vice president, Internet Access

Solutions Business Unit, Rajeev Agrawal.

The company has also been reported to have slipped into red after having

registered a loss of Rs 15.63 crore on a sales revenue of Rs 108.6 crore for the

financial year 2001-02. Last year the company reported a profit of Rs 28.1 crore

on a revenue of Rs 142.8 crore. Orders being withdrawn, sales cycles becoming

longer and delayed decision making, are cited as reasons for the poor

performance of the company during an economically turbulent year.

It has also liquidated its wholly owned subsidiary in Japan, silicon

Automation Systems Kabushiki Kaisha, into a branch office. This way it plans to

minimize the loss, caused by withholding tax that is being charged in Japan.

Raising funds, launching new product, initiating product developments along with

business and liquidating subsidiaries into branch offices are Sasken’s effort

to stay afloat and become profitable once again.